You should say:
- Who this person is
- What this person does
- Why this person is interesting
- How you think of this person
Band 8 Sample
Now, I’m going to tell you something about a very nice and funny foreign friend that I have. His name is Xin Jiping, and is Chinese. I first knew about this person 2 years ago when I was an exchange student in China. To the best of my recollection, the first time that I met him, I was highly impressed by his leadership skills as well as his strong determination.
He is a tall, fat guy and quite a bit older than me. In his country, he is well-known for his talent in organizing events and leading groups in social activities. He told me he first discovered this talent at the age of 8, when he first read a book called “Marxist philosophy”, which he called “The Holy Bible”. Through this book, he learned many new things about leadership and how to become an influential person in society. At first, he had some difficulties when applying the theories in this book into reality since many people were still opposed to his opinion. However, thanks to his effort, he eventually managed to become the leader of student union at a big university in China. So far, he has participated in a number of different activities and used his influence to help many less fortunate people in his hometown.
Finally, with regards to my feeling about this person, I think there are many things that I need to learn from him. I hope that I’ll have another opportunity to go back to China and meet him again.
Vocabulary highlights:
- To the best of my recollection: if I remember correctly
- An influential person: a person who has a lot of influence on other people
IELTS Speaking Part 3:
1. Do you think communicating with foreigners is a good way to learn about foreign culture?
Well, I think it’s too obvious, actually. From my experience, people from any country are always willing to share what they know about their own culture to others with a great sense of pride. Therefore, we can learn a great deal of new things about their country when having a chat with them.
2. What are the disadvantages of working for an international company?
In my opinion, I believe that the biggest drawback when working for a multi-national organisation would be the differences in working cultures. You know, many employees may find it difficult to adapt to a completely strange working environment and it would take them quite a while to get used to everything at the new place. This may somehow affect their working performance during the first days at the company.
3. What kinds of problems do people face when they travel or live in a foreign country?
There are several problems in this case and the most obvious one would be the differences in cultures. Some actions may be acceptable in a culture but can be considered as offensive in another. Therefore, if we don’t carefully take culture into consideration when travelling to a new place, we may get into some trouble with the local people.
4. Do you like to make friends with people from other countries?
Yes, of course. Having friends from different countries is a very good way for us to learn about new places and new cultures. And such knowledge can be highly valuable if we plan to move to another country to live or just to travel.
5. Do you have any international friends?
I do have a few but we’re not very close. You know, I don’t have time to see them frequently, so we actually don’t know very much about each other.
6. How do the cultural differences hinder the growth of an organization/company?
From my own experience, some employees may be reluctant to work and contribute to organizations whose culture doesn’t match, or is even conflicting, to the one of their local
area. Because of this, the working performance of each worker and then the productivity of the company may be negatively affected.
7. How do sports help to break the barriers of cultural differences?
To be honest, I don’t know much about sports and their influence on culture. But if I have to give an answer for this question, I think that maybe when people play sport, they share the fun and passion of the sport and don’t take culture into consideration. That could be the reason why differences in cultures can be eliminated in sports.
